Kicks, Joy, Darkness review
by John Grady

Jack Kerouac's voice, his be-bop, imaginative musings, keep touching new
readers - and listeners - all the time. The latest manifestation is the Ryko CD Kerouac - Kicks, Joy, Darkness". While there's plenty of "star" power, including movie actor Johnny Depp,
poet/singer Patti Smith, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, REM's Michael Stipe and
Aerosmith's Steve Tyler all bringing their own spins to the material, the
center of the disk is definitely Kerouac. In typical Kerouac style, the poetry-music material here is startling, abstract, moody and, in the best be-bop jazz tradition the writer aspired to,
difficult, way out there on the edge.

When Kerouac first rejected white, middle-class materialism and terrified
America's conformist society with his eager, honest, radical bestseller ON THE ROAD in 1957, he was labelled a goofy, scattered rebel. But, despite that
lingering charge, Kerouac's work won't stop pushing fresh generations onto
the same spiritual quest for an ecstatic, spontaneous life that he espoused.
Kerouac purposely mimicked the impulses, surprises and rhythms of jazz. His
words fly into new territories, sometimes turning into non-words, un-words or
sounds. Plus, he loved to invent new words. Unruly, jazzy, impressionistic,
emotional, confessional - Kerouac's work is all these things, which can make
it difficult to follow. But when his word-jams click into focus, they hammer
readers like emotional battering rams.

The material on this disk is true to Kerouac's range of expression, from the
fierce and harshly cacophonous, to the quietly sensitive, filled with love,
lyrically beautiful. "A lot of poeple don't know Kerouac as a poet," says Jim Sampas, the disk's
producer. "We wanted to get people to discover the poetry, the other
dimensions in Kerouac's his writing." Interest in Kerouac and all things Beat keeps increasing. With readings, art
shows, concerts and seminars on the subject taking place coast to coast,
Sampas felt the need for this Kerouac project growing (see accompanying
article).

The CD opens with a sizzling, ka-thumping, drum-rolling solo driving a
reverbed reading of an original poem by Morphine entitled "Kerouac," one of
only two pieces on the disk not penned by Jack. The jazzy flavor of the
stripped-down track, recited low, evokes a Beat sensibility: "His words...
like a mirror and you're invisible... Kerouac.... passion, photographic love,
vulnerable, his memories pull shades up and down..."

Constantly scribbling in small notebooks, Kerouac produced what he called
"pomes," snatches of description and emotions modelled after jazz player
solos, written quickly, as "choruses" in series he called "blues." "Kerouac's poems lend themselves to this project because they are often
self-contained, like songs, or little dramatic pieces, it helps with the
flow," says Sampas.

Writer/performance artist Lydia Lunch gives a charged reading from Kerouac's
"Bowery Blues." Sounding like she's outside, surrounded by chirping insects,
Lunch combines her gruff, "beat" approach with transcendent, or "beatific,"
aspects of the spirituality Kerouac aspired to: "I am hurt, I am scared, I
want to live, I want to die, I dont know, where to turn, In the Void, And
when, to cut, Out, For no Church told me, no Guru holds me..."

"The piece I chose spoke directly to my duality," says Lunch, author of
INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE, a collection of stories, rants, and scripts and
ADULTERER'S ANONYMOUS, a collaborative book of poetry with Exene Cervenka.
"Kerouac's life was more of an inspiration to me than any of his writing. Both
he and Burroughs lived out their wanderlust, explored their desires, travelled
extensively and documented their experiences... setting a liberating example."
Like many others, Lunch emulated these artists. "I started wandering as a
very young teenager, scribbling poems, tomes and random notes on ragged pieces
of paper, on napkins and in filthy notebooks. I knew my urgency should and
would be documented."

NOTE: Lunch has a new double CD of "Illustrated Word," spoken word set to music,
available through Atavistic. Hubert Selby wrote the introduction for her new
book PARADOXIA, A PREDATOR'S DIARY, true memoirs of sexual misadventure and
the psychic repercussions by Creation Press.

We hear Kerouac's own voice in "MacDougal Street Blues" by Joe Strummer.
Against a sinewy beat, the ex-Clash member plays with the sounds of Kerouac's
own moody reading. Jack pushes English into unknown, strange evocations with
different chanting emotions: "Here is our Sweet Mahameru/Who will coo/To You
Too..." His voice reverberates against the ominous beatbox mix,
electronically enhanced for vivid effect. Kerouac himself speaks across time:
"And I said, wilt thou protect me for 'ver?"

Cars moving and sounds of Kerouac himself skat singing high-pitched
"hmm-hmms" are used to back up Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter's reading
of a description of Neal Cassady from VISIONS OF CODY: "who walks as fast as
he can go on the balls of his feet...Something about his tigerish out-jutted
raw facebone could be given a woe-down melancholy..."

Even though it is unruly and difficult, Kerouac's "Pencil traceries of our
faintest wish" can be touchingly sweet, especially in his road descriptions.
He sees "nobone half-banana moons sloping in the tangled night sky, the
torments of great formations in mist..." Kerouac makes up some words in the
"madroad driving" excerpt from VISIONS OF CODY read by Johnny Depp, backed up
by the band Come: "cast your mountains up, bedawze the west, bedight the
west..."

Gonzo-journalist Hunter Thompson, who often credits Kerouac for inspiration,
departs from Kerouac's text to recite his own "Ode To Jack": "Four dogs went to
the wilderness only three came back, two dogs died from guinea worm, the
other died from you Jack Kerouac..." As he explains to his attorney: "Kerouac
was not innocent, he ran over dogs."

The many facets of Kerouac's talents are presented on the disk. "Different
artists give each piece a different beat," says producer Sampas.

Juliana Hatfield in a perky, amusing voice, recites "Silly Goofball Pomes
like a children's story:"The Dachshund is a snake full of Love... The
Abominable Snowman is not abominable at all, he doesn't hurt anybody.."

The project's associate producer Lee Ranaldo makes his own contribution with
"the urgent ride with a blonde while quaffing Mexican benzedrine." Singer
Anna Domino offers a scary description of Kerouac's mythical character Doctor
Sax. A psychedelic visionary Mexican rooftop piece, "with light holes and
pool-puddles" chanting at the end, is performed by Rob Buck & Danny Chauvin
as Hitchhiker.

Patti Smith performs the Last Hotel with Thurston Moore and Lenny Kaye, live
at the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival in 1995, reciting: "The last
hotel/Ghosts in my bed"

Kerouac's Beat pals Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti all appear on the CD. Ferlinghetti evokes a sunny afternoon in an unpublished "Dream," backed up
by the soundtrack-like effects of Helium. Ferlinghetti gets a bit of W.C.
Fields (whom Kerouac loved) going in his voice, complaining about getting a
morphine shot, screaming: "not too much of that stuff 'Doc!!'"

William Burroughs goes for the Old Western Movies, with an abstract backup
by tomandandy. In his twang and grizzled voice, Burroughs intones
cinematically: "Drive the cattle thru that silver wall, help ladies to their
hearse, mouth in the sun..."

Allen Ginsberg, a frequent character in Kerouac's books, appears in a live
performance at New York University's Kerouac Tribute concert in 1995 at Town
Hall. The poet gets a bit of "bookmovie" going as he read Kerouac's
confessions: "My mother had just told a fib, and in the process made me
liar..."

One page of the unpublished "Brooklyn Bridge Blues" Ginsberg read at the
concert didn't make it through the fax machine, so he added some real life
drama to his reading, confessing to only having nine of the ten choruses.
He's unable to finish the piece. Writer/singer Eric Andersen completes the CD with his reading the Tenth
Chorus, recorded on the Brooklyn Bridge with sounds of traffic going by on
the road.

The accompanying booklet includes the texts of each selection -- including
three previously unpublished pieces. Plus it is illustrated with Kerouac's
own original paintings and watercolors, also previously unpublished. A Ralph
Steadman sketch, "Skid Row Wine," completes the package.

My only criticism is the omission of others who could have appeared here.
Where are Cecil Taylor, David Amram, Steve Allen, Mark Murphy or other
classic jazz performers much more closely in touch with the be-bop world
Kerouac drew inspiration from? Poets Amiri Baraka, Ted Joans, Diane DiPrima,
Anne Waldman and ex-Fugs member Ed Sanders are just a few of the other
artists who could make strong contributions. Beat poet Michael McClure, who
tours and records with ex-Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, is another logical
choice. Not to mention rock stars who have already paid tribute to Kerouac in
songs, like Aztec Two-Step, 10,000 Maniacs, Tom Waits, etc. I guess I just
want more.

This is a very solid collection of exciting Kerouac material presented in
fresh ways by cutting edge artists, sure to keep amplifying Kerouac's voice
to younger and wider audiences. The producers and Ryko deserve credit for
adding this volume to its VOICES literary series.